Brother_Bliss

Some just wanted some assurance. You can use an app on your phone to give anyone a beard, including your wives and children, lol. There is no Proverbs 29:30

I've got the mustache/goatee, circle beard going on, and I will say may resting face looks evil, lol. It forces me to smile more

I've never been to SKE, but usually the rules are about not posting notes or recordings.

We are his witnesses, his people, and it shows. What other organization is willing to bear the name of God despite the persecution it brings? What other organization has completely organized the planet into territories so that the good news gets to as many people as possible. What other organization has over 8 million people preaching each month, voluntarily? What other organization even comes close to publishing material in the thousands of languages that we do? What other organization does all of this free of charge? You can travel anywhere in the world and be warmly received by your fellow believers, no matter what country you are from. I went on vacation years ago to the beach. We attended a meeting while there. A group took us out to lunch and insisted on paying for it. We were not even the guest speaker. I was just passing through. Try pulling that off in any [other] church, lol.

Somewhat. My wife likes clean shaven, but she tells everyone that she's "gonna let me do what I want" lol

Keep doing what you are doing 😉 I completely agree with your assessment here. I have gone from 225 to 175 in the last 8 months and improved most of my blood markers. I am stage 4 CKD so I do have some issues that come from spilling things I shouldn't, and failing to filter out things that I should. But if it wasn't for my CKD everything would be pristine. Your blood work looks pristine to me. Your cholesterol and HDL levels are just fine, and in fact in the sweet spot right where you want them. I've been doing mainly a carnivore diet. However, I am by no means averse to select fruits and vegetables.

There could be a couple issues here. 1) The brothers involved in the project are expected to keep things confidential. 2) Our JWTalk Membership Policy discourages the spread of confidential information. Our Spoilers clause does not allow for the disseminating confidential information.

Threaded view went out of style over 15 years ago, so your major forum software devs don't either never had the functionality, or deprecated it. The only software I can think of that sorta does it today is WPForo.

His wasn't the only one. Now these proposals are worth some discussion. A type of sorting is coming our way in a few months... https://invisioncommunity.com/news/invision-community/invision-community-5-quickly-find-the-most-helpful-answers-r1290/ I personally loved threaded view (hierarchal) and we originally had that, but the JWTalk community voted on linear display years ago. I was the odd duck that got out-voted, lol. Reactions (and the upcoming "Helpful" feature) is essentially voting. Reactions could be assigned a negative value and we could have a thumbs down reaction, but that proposal usually gets met with a lot of resistance. There's actually a thread or two about that going on right now.

I will say I now look much older when just a few weeks ago I looked much younger, lol. Time to play with the beard dye

Prayers have been heard. Prayers have been answered

I'm a member there. It's a ghost town. Only once in a great while does someone visit and say something. Personally, I don't see a need for a subreddit. We did something similar here years ago with our software's built in "Clubs" functionality. Members could create their own "Clubs", moderate them, invite members or have it be public, etc, but they ended up dying on the vine. And we pushed them hard too. So after a while we consolidated them into subforums and merged them all with the main forums. There's 2 JW forums on the internet that I am aware of, one is a small private niche community, invite only, with just a few participating members. It's probably going to go belly up in the next few years. The JW subreddit tries to copy this model, and it is also dead. Then there is us, open, visible, public, and at the same time PROVE that we're legit, and we're a fairly busy and active community. The only other thing that is remotely close (or may even best us) in numbers of participants is certain JW Facebook groups. But Facebook is difficult to moderate and grossly unorganized, unlike proper discussion boards.

It's cause all you naughty boys keep mining the site for spoilers, lol

Both! Bacon will satisfy this living thing (points at self) in the new world. I will shed a tear and mourn if there isn't any there.

I plan to get the PlayStation VR2 in 2024 and get into VR gaming.

I was sick for 3 weeks, so I had a head start. Brothers and sisters see my facial hair and are like "Man that was fast!" lol ... and in a baptist congregation full of beards. The head honcho, whatever the baptists call him, probably sports one too, lol.

Basically you are correct. Keep in mind that was 7 years ago. A lot changes in 7 years. The beards & congregation privileges issue has been coming up again and again for the last couple decades, but we still clung to the principle about not potentially stumbling others as the reason not to grow a beard. In some countries, facial hair became culturally acceptable faster than in other countries. This is why we were told that it depends on your local culture and up to the local elders to decide. In reality, nobody on the face of the planet actually cared except for these older generation JW's who had lived most of their adult lives with the "beards may stumble someone" mentality. And as it turns out, this desire to "not potentially stumble someone" was actually the very thing doing the stumbling.

All 128 posts (good Lord!) about whether angels still retain their beards after dematerializing every other part of their body 🙄 has been split off into it's own thread here... https://jwtalk.net/topic/56806-do-angels-have-beards-in-heaven-split-off-from-2023-gb-update-8/

If someone didn't attend meetings regularly for whatever reason, then yes I think you could consider them "on the fence" spiritually and in need of encouragement. If someone attended a meeting with a beard all these years faithfully, then you could assume that they were indeed spiritually secure in their relationship with Jehovah. Remember, there was never a "no beard" rule. But it was taboo, and because it was taboo those sporting one were not considered "exemplary" which held them back from reaching out for privileges. Not every brother is interested in such privileges, and were happy to attend meetings and go out in the ministry with their beard. The beard alone was never a reflection of their spirituality - which is the point that the GB Update addressed. Now, on the other hand, if someone was weak to begin with, then the beard issue was a stumbling block. A young newly baptized brother became inactive right after his baptism. Me and another brother would visit him regularly to try and encourage him. When we FINALLY got him to come to a meeting, after the program Brother Anti-Beard Elder goes over to him, mentions his facial hair, and tells him he should know better. We hadn't seen this brother in months, and after that, we never saw him again. The same Elder had a student that was somewhat progressive and had attended a few meetings. The student comes to me at one meeting and asks me about why nobody has facial hair, because his teacher pointed at his mustache/goatee after one study session and said to him "You know, the day is coming when you're going to have to shave that thing off your face". I tried to explain that he can sport his facial hair all he wants, that it's just this brothers strong opinion and we occasionally have a bearded brother and neighboring congregations have bearded brothers, but alas, this was around the last time we ever saw this student attend a meeting. ^ Those are just 2 of many examples I have see with my own eyes and heard with my own ears how the taboo surrounding facial hair can be a stumbling block to those who are weak. Personally, I would have kept my mouth shut about facial hair and let the student draw his own conclusions, because I don't feel like being fitted for a millstone around my neck, lol. But the GB Update to settle the issue of beards being allowed even for appointed men was necessary, because in this day and age it would be easy to hear "JW's can't have beards" (which was NEVER true) and conclude we don't have the truth, because you can read the exact opposite in the scriptures.

We're gonna rival the Amish

I would lean towards saying you are right. Dress and grooming was one of his favorite topics to get out the whip and polish it up, lol I feel like there is a pattern here of when someone is no longer on the Governing Body, big changes happen, which would make sense because I believe they all have to mutually agree on everything.

I've been sick since the end of November so I got a head start. I'm in Qapla's Zoom meeting right now showing off my facial hair

Give a teen gods for fathers and superhuman strength and boys will be boys, lol

I always found it curious that they could create human-like bodies to inhabit before the flood, fully capable of eating, drinking, and reproduction. This inclines me to think that they had some hands on duties back in the day, imo.